


Strata

by Kat Allison (katallison)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-07-01
Updated: 1999-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katallison/pseuds/Kat%20Allison





	Strata

Crouched on a shelf cut into the cliff face, screened by scrub pines, the hunter waited. 

The blind he had chosen, after a morning of scouting, was not a particularly good one, as he knew very well.  Holding a crouch on the steep-angled slope strained his legs, and the sparse trees were insufficient to screen him from the full broil of the afternoon sun.  Nor, for that matter, from anyone on the trail below who had reason to look upward.  But no one did look his way—not when they had instead the immense, the staggering spectacle of the Grand Canyon to stare at.  And stare they did, the steady stream of hikers, young and old, solitary and in groups, sweating, panting, some of them limping.  They paused, in the resting spot directly beneath him, refilling water bottles, pointing cameras, staring out at the astonishing sight, and then trudging on up the trail.

The hunter noted them all as they passed, sparing only brief glances at the canyon as he flexed a leg, wiped sweat, took a sip from his water bottle.  Weeks of dogged tracking had brought him to this place, and he had no intention of wasting that effort.  His gaze stayed fixed on the trail below him, and he kept his mind hard and sharp, edged with anger.  The canyon would still be there days, years, centuries hence.  His prey would not be.

A gliding hawk distracted him for a moment, and when he looked back ... there, just coming up around the switchback, was that him?  He squinted across the expanse and groped in his pack, fingers brushing over and past his weapon and then finding the binoculars, pulling them out, raising them to his eyes.  After a dizzy moment of scanning and focusing, he found the group, the herd, and picked over them impatiently, looking for ... there.  There, at last, his quarry, the one he'd hunted across the continent—

—wearing a _pith helmet_?

Duncan MacLeod almost dropped his binoculars in shock.  He actually sat back on his heels, with a little whuff of outrage, before lurching forward again, rescanning, refocusing, and relocating ... yes, there he was. No question about it.  Methos, in a white pith helmet, and a white t-shirt, both embossed with some gaudy logo he couldn't make out at this distance.  Methos leading a straggling pack of hikers, clearly in full lecture mode, gesturing toward the rocks, stabbing with a forefinger to make a point.  Methos grinning, apparently launching some joke and unfazed by a feeble response from his winded followers.

Duncan felt a little breathless himself.  Despite all his investigations and inquiries, he hadn't, really, when all was said and done, believed he would find him here, doing this.  The gross implausibility of it offended his sense of the fitness of things in the cosmos, and put an exasperated edge on his anger.

He kept watching. The distorting shimmers of heat, the strange flat depthlessness of the magnified view, made it seem like a fantasy, an outtake from another one of the when-I-find-him films he'd screened in his mind these long weeks.  But even in his oddest fantasies he hadn't imagined .... He watched Methos leading his group into the shaded resting place below, signaling a halt, and then moving easily among the collapsed figures, apparently urging them to take water, handing out—what, candy bars?—some sort of food, dug out of his pack.  He watched as Methos knelt and did something skillful to a heavyset man's foot; dressing a blister, perhaps.  Watched, gripping the binoculars harder, as a long-limbed young woman, in skimpy shorts and an even skimpier halter top, stopped Methos with a hand on his arm, gave him a tube of something, turned and presented her bare shoulders for lotioning.  Even at this distance, he could see the simper she was directing back at him, and god, Methos was making an awfully thorough job of it, really working the glop in, whatever it was, sunscreen, he supposed. 

Duncan suddenly lowered the binoculars, and after a moment shoved them back in his pack.  He'd had a plan—to cut ahead on the trail and get back up to the canyon's rim ahead of Methos.  To intercept him at the trailhead, a spot he would have to pass through, at the end of the day's hike, when he should be slowed down a bit with fatigue.  A time when he'd be done with his day's responsibilities, and would have no excuse, no evasion, no quick escape.  But suddenly Duncan couldn't wait another moment. The sight of the man, after all this time, all this effort, had brought something in him to a boil.  He made his way out from behind the brush and let his body pick its way down the rock face, while his mind seethed. 

The strange acoustics of the rocks, and the carrying power of Methos' voice, were such that he could hear him—entertaining his group by describing, with relish and in morbid detail, the stages of death from dehydration—a moment before he could sense him.  Then as the hum rose between them, reverberating through his skull and down his spine, he could hear a momentary pause in the flow of speech, just an instant's hesitation, and then the lecture resumed, the voice wholly unshaken, if anything cheerfuller than before.  _Points to you_ , he thought grimly.

And then he let the thought go, taking a deep breath and gathering himself.  Just a few more feet, and around that big rock.  Already, he was fully focused on who he would find on the other side.

A little too focused, perhaps, because he failed to notice a loose bit of stone underfoot, and so when he swung around from behind the rock and entered the clearing it was with a stagger and lurch.  He steadied himself fast, and snapped his head around, and there was Methos, standing a scant few yards off, hands in pockets, watching him.

"MacLeod.  Glad you could join us."  Without waiting for Duncan's curt nod, he went on, "You do have a penchant for gate-crashing tours, don't you?"

For the first instant, he was merely stunned that Methos would fire that off, first shot out of the box—hell, that he would even remember it, from some late-night conversation years ago—and then the memory blinded him.  Tessa, the first time he'd ever seen her, in her ridiculous captain's hat, hair fluttering in the river breeze.  How cocky he'd been, and how she'd bridled at him, flustered and scolding, half-laughing and half-angry, off-balance for one of the few times in their relationship.  But as his vision cleared, and he looked up again, he could see that Methos was wholly composed, and he himself was the one off-balance.  He stood, feeling his face grow ruddy, not knowing what to do with his eyes or his hands.  He unslung his bag from his shoulders, to be doing something, and then just stood there gripping it, trying not to stare at Methos.

Trying not to notice that he looked wonderful.  He had picked up a tan, nothing deep, just enough sun to bleach out the fine hairs on his arms, and give his skin a lightly-toasted glow.  Duncan's eyes skittered nervously over him, taking in the logo on his hat and t-shirt—"CanyonTrek Adventures"—and the worn pack slung over one shoulder, the sweat-darkened red bandana tied around his head under the silly styrofoam helmet, and the long knife in a sheath on his belt.

"You're just in time to be of assistance, actually," Methos went on, turning away.  "Dave here has developed some leg cramps, and Peggy is suffering a bit from the heat.  If you could take their bags, and perhaps just give Peggy an arm ... "

And two minutes later he found himself trudging along at the rear of the group, hung with bags like a coat-tree, supporting the elbow of a middle-aged woman who was struggling gamely up the trail and gasping out an apology every few minutes.   Yards ahead, Methos was relaying dubious information about the prehistory of the Havusapai people, along with some highly embellished speculation as to the fate of the Anasazi, and pointing out stratigraphic anomalies in the rocks they were passing.  Only a couple of the hikers appeared to be paying much attention; the others were focused merely on putting one foot in front of the other. 

Duncan himself found the trail strenuous going, and put his mind on making polite reassuring sounds at Peggy, and trying to figure out if he were more angry with Methos, or with himself for getting suckered. 

He could see the whole plan.  Methos had saddled him with this sweet, sore-footed, out-of-shape, hapless woman, knowing how much she'd slow him down.  Knowing he wouldn't abandon her on the trail in order to chase after him.  He'd fall further and further behind, and Methos would press on ahead, and by the time he finally got to the trailhead, Methos would be long gone. 

His jaw was set so tight that it hurt, but he didn't realize he was pushing harder and faster up the trail until finally Peggy, instead of her usual apology, gasped out, "Please.  Can we stop a minute?"

He stopped then, and looked down at her, seeing the strain in her red wet face, and the exhausted quiver in her legs.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "I'm sorry."  He put his hands under the sodden armpits of her shirt, half-carried her into a shaded niche in the rock face, sat her down on the ground.  He gave her water from his canteen, wetted a handkerchief and wiped her face and neck, fanned her with his hand.  After a minute she breathed more easily.

"I really am sorry," he told her again, and she waved a feeble dismissal at him.

"It's OK.  I guess I thought I was in better shape than this," she said.  "I do my aerobics tapes and all.  Three times a week."

"You're in fine shape, it's likely just the altitude."  He still felt apologetic.

"Yeah, that'd make sense.  I live near the ocean.  Out east, in Connecticut." 

"A long ways from here," Duncan said.  The urge to get moving again itched fiercely at him, but he leashed it.

"I wasn't sure I'd ever get out here, to tell you the truth."  She sat up straighter, pushing damp hair out of her face.  "My husband always wanted to go, but it just never seemed like a good time.  After he passed—well, I thought, the heck with sitting around the house."  She paused, craning her neck and looking out over the canyon.  "I'm awfully glad I took the trip, you know?  I figured, I'd seen the pictures, it couldn't be all that much of a big deal, but they really don't show you ... "  She fell silent.  Her face was open, amazed at the splendor before her, vulnerable.  A child's expression of wonder, amidst the creases of middle age.  It was a look, Duncan realized, that he had seen on the faces of those at the point of death, and it always moved him.

Then she looked back at him.  "It's hard to imagine, isn't it?  That this was here for—oh, millions of years before we ever came along.  Just sitting here.  Getting deeper, I guess.  And that it'll be here long after we both kick off.  Kind of makes you feel small, doesn't it?  In a good way, I mean,"  she added quickly, laughing a little."

"How are you doing now?" Duncan asked after a moment.

"Fine.  I'm fine.  Just thinking that I'm really glad I got a chance to see this before I die.  And hey."  She put a hand on his arm.  "Thanks for helping me."  The gratitude in her voice was honest, as genuine as her earlier apologies had been social fluff, and he found himself smiling back at her, with equal honesty. It felt good, and he found himself wondering idly if perhaps someday decades hence, when she'd be long dead, he'd come back and find this spot and remember her.

"Are you sure you're ready to go again?" Duncan asked, as she began to struggle back to her feet.

"I'm OK," she said.  She let him raise her, wincing as she put her weight back on her feet.  "And I know you want to catch up with your friend.  C'mon."  She started walking with hobbled little steps, body tilted forward at a determined angle. 

As he came up next to her and took her elbow, she gave him a quick jab in the side.  "But hey.  We don't have to kill ourselves here, you know.  He'll be up at the top whenever we get there."

"Sure," he said, to reassure her, and suddenly realized that it didn't matter whether he actually believed that or not.  Somehow, some of the urgency had gone out of his pursuit, and a small voice in his head told him _If not here, somewhere.  If not now, sometime._

And, in fact, even before they reached the trailhead, he could feel Methos' presence singing over his nerves. Reinvigorated, he propelled Peggy up the last switchback, giving her his strength, until the final few yards, when he took his hands away so she could come back into the view of her travelling companions under her own steam.  He followed, unloading bags from his shoulders and handing them around. 

He had spotted Methos immediately, standing over by the drinking fountains, where the hikers were clustered like a herd of wildebeest at the watering hole, almost trampling each other in eagerness.  One by one they drank, then peeled away and staggered in the direction of the air-conditioned tour bus that sat nearby, chugging diesel fumes into the desert air.  A few of the less exhausted ones paused to thank Methos, who smiled politely, nodded, shook a few hands, pocketed a few folded bills. 

Finally the stragglers were gone, sealed into the aluminum capsule of the bus and driven away.  Methos sighed deeply, waited while a sturdy-legged couple took turns drinking, and then pulled off his helmet and bandana and stuck his entire head under the spigot.  He pulled back, dripping, rinsed the bandana in the cool water, wrung it out and used it to briskly towel over his hair and face.

When at last he raised his head, swiping the last drops from his hair, he looked straight at Duncan, for the first time since they'd met on the trail.  He said nothing, just stood unmoving, his pack at his feet, waiting for whatever Duncan might have in mind to say or do.

And now that he finally had what he'd been anticipating—Methos with him, alone, without distractions or excuses, with no way of avoiding the talk Duncan intended to have with him—now that his weeks of effort had reached their goal, he felt at a loss, not knowing where to start.  His singleness of purpose had developed hairline fractures, somewhere during the hike up the trail, and the edge had gone off his anger.

He walked over slowly, feeling stiffness in his legs and a vague sense of being put on the spot.  To be saying something, he said, "I wasn't sure they'd all make it."

"Haven't lost one yet.  This group wasn't bad at all, actually.  Sometimes you have several who practically need to be carried the last stretch."  Methos plucked absently at his shirt, pulling it loose from his skin.  "Thanks for helping out."

"Peggy damn near needed carrying.  I figured—"  He turned a little away from Methos, making his voice casual.  "I figured you might have taken off by the time I got her up here.  That that was your plan."  He looked over, and suddenly wished he could take the words back.  Methos's face had the plexiglass blankness that he knew meant his words had hit home.

After a pause, Methos said, "She needed help.  You like helping people.  Seemed like a good fit.  Hardly worth calling a plan.  Don't give me too much credit."

Duncan winced inwardly at the snap in the last word.  "OK."  He let his eyes fall.  This was starting to feel all too familiar already; the itchy mix of anger and shame, and the labor of groping for a new, safer topic.  "What's up with that?"  he said, pointing to the styrofoam helmet, which was dangling loosely from Methos' hand.  Methos looked down at it, frowning. 

"Management's cute idea.  And not entirely impractical, in this climate."  He glanced up at Duncan.  "You doubtless wore something similar yourself, back in the days when you were defending the outposts of Empire."  He held it out.  "Want to try it on, for old time's sake?"

"No I didn't, and no I don't," Duncan said with emphasis.  Methos shrugged and shoved the helmet and the bandana in his pack.  Straightening, he scrubbed his fingers roughly through his hair, so the damp pelt stuck out in all directions.

"You look like Struwwelpeter when you do that," Duncan said.

Methos grimaced.  "I always hated those stories.  You probably liked them, right?  Cut off the naughty boy's thumbs and all that."  He ran his hands over his hair again, self-consciously smoothing it down.  "I need a haircut." 

"Do you—"  Duncan looked around.  "Do you want to go over to the Lodge?  We could get something to drink, and it'd be cooler in there."

Methos shook his head.  "Terrible music, and overpriced Coors.  Unless you require air conditioning, I'd just as soon sit out here.  I know a spot nearby.  Besides—"  he gestured out toward the canyon— "a shame for you to come all this way and not enjoy the view."

I didn't come for the view, Duncan thought, but he only said, "That's fine."

Methos led him away from the parking lot, off the trail, through a small stand of pines, to a spur of  limestone that jutted out beyond the canyon rim, into the void.  Duncan hung back and watched him saunter out to the end of the rock, as easily as if he were strolling down the Boulevard St. Germain.  Once Methos was settled, cross-legged, perched like a bird on the edge of emptiness, Duncan edged out after him, taking deep breaths and keeping his gaze fixed on the rock at his feet until he too was seated.  Then he raised his eyes.

It was far too much, overwhelming, dizzying, and for a moment he teetered with vertigo, feeling his stomach already fallen over the edge and knowing the rest of him was about to follow.  He flailed, grabbing for anything, and then he felt Methos' grip on his elbow, holding him steady.  He made himself breathe more slowly, and after a moment the lurching panic subsided, and he could look around again.

"It's really something, isn't it?" Methos said.  "My favorite spot to watch the sunset."

He felt the rock solid beneath him, and Methos' hand holding him steady, and very soon he was all right, and even after Methos took his hand away he felt anchored; balanced, as he had not since he'd stumbled into the clearing, a mile and a half down the trail. 

He sat, breathing, listening to the resonant silence.  He watched a thin cloud move over the sun, seeing how it changed the colors of the rocks from crimson and ochre to lavender, and then back again, as it passed. The wind lifted his hair, drying the dampness of sweat.  He felt himself cooling down, and the familiar pleasure of hard-worked muscles relaxing. 

In the stillness, the torrent of rageful words that for weeks had clamored in his head began to sputter, slowing and softening and then gradually falling quiet.  His soul, which had so long felt cramped with anger, unclenched, like a fist loosening, and he found he could breathe deeply, for the first time in what felt like a long time. 

He looked around.  Hugeness of sky, and huge emptiness above and below and all around him.  In this enormous space there was no room for his anger, and as he let go his clutch on it, he felt the huge wind lift it like a dead leaf and carry it away.

All at once this difficult conversation with Methos, the one he'd been telling himself harshly he must have, seemed easy.  They could just ... talk.  He waited for words to rise in his mind, and when they did he spoke without more thought.   "This isn't what I expected to find you doing."

"I'm almost afraid to ask what you did expect."

"I ..."  Duncan was taken aback that he would speak, however lightly, of fear.  "I don't think I had any expectations.  I never know what to expect from you.  I suppose I tried not to think too much about it."

"Ah."  Methos nodded.  "Probably better that way.  Less chance that you'll be let down."

Duncan waited a while, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming.  He tried again.  "Isn't this job a bit public?  I wouldn't have thought you'd go for something this visible.  Not really safe, is it?"

"You know something that's odd, immortals really don't seem to go for tourist spots."  Methos spoke with earnest curiosity.  "Why do you suppose that is?"

Duncan had the familiar sense of the conversation sliding away in some unexpected direction, out of his control.  "I don't—even if that's true, I have no idea why."

"I don't know if it's some sort of cosmic ennui—you know, been-there-done-that-to-the-nth-power—or if it's just the crowds.  Relatively few of us seem all that fond of people."  He looked over at Duncan.  "You're unusual in that way.  Among others."

"Um."  Duncan felt like someone who'd thought he was putting together a jigsaw puzzle picturing an iceberg and had just turned up a piece with a palm tree on it.  "You like people," he said slowly, examining the concept.  "You'd have to like people, to choose to do this job."

Now Methos was staring at him.  "Well, of course I like people, MacLeod.  What in god's name would be the point of sticking around all this time if I disliked people?"

He sighed, letting it go, setting the puzzle aside to fiddle with later.  "You didn't seem surprised to see me."

"Should I be?"  Methos smiled sidelong at him.  "Would you like that?"

"Sure.  I'd love to surprise you, for once."

Methos suddenly flung himself into an ingenue swoon, eyes huge and fluttering, hand pressed to brow, and almost toppled off the rock.  Duncan had to grab him and haul him back upright.  "Lunatic.  No, but I'd like it if ... Joe didn't help me, you know, I found you on my own.  You could be a little—I dunno.  Impressed."

"You always impress me, MacLeod."  Methos spoke without a trace of irony or archness.

Now Duncan was the one surprised.  "Well.  Thanks."  He didn't know how to respond.  "Give me some of that water, would you?"

Methos passed the canteen over, and Duncan took a swallow, smelling a whiff of sun lotion on the canvas sling.  "So, who was that girl?" he asked.

"Girl, what girl?" 

"The one who really seemed to like you rubbing goop all over her shoulders."

"Oh, Nicole.  Right.  Very nice _young woman_."  He stressed the words in a "get with the times, MacLeod" tone of voice.  "Recently broke her engagement to an engineering student at Ball State, her parents decided a family tour of the national parks was just the ticket to console her."  He shook his head in bemusement.  Duncan had almost smiled at "Ball State," and then again at Methos' expression, but he kept a straight face when Methos tilted an eyebrow at him.  "Jealous?  Or do you want her e-mail address?"

"What would I have to be jealous about?"

"What indeed."  Methos reached over casually and thumbed a drop of wet from Duncan's lower lip before taking the canteen back.  Duncan held very still under that touch, waiting to see if there would be more, but Methos only sat back.  "I just thought that might be one tack you'd take to launch this conversation."

"Conversation."

"The one you came here to have.  The one I can feel just brimming over in you."  Methos took a drink himself from the canteen.  "So.  What script did you have in mind, MacLeod?  You could be jealous and I could be snarky, but apparently we're not going to do that one.  You could do pissed off, and I could do blase."  He shrugged, and then turned the shrug into a stretch, rolling his shoulders one way and then the other.  "We could both just start yelling.  If it's going to get physical we should probably move it back off this rock, though, I've no desire to do a Butch-and-Sundance here."

"I'm not pissed off.  I don't want to yell."  Duncan spoke carefully, like a climber testing rocks, making sure of the truth of each word before he spoke it.  "And I'm not _jealous_ for christ's sake.  I'm ... glad to see you.  And I have some questions.  I don't know why you came here, and I'd like to know.  I want to understand."

Methos nodded, but didn't speak.  A long interlude of silence fell between them, punctuated only by the sounds of distant cars, passing voices, birdsong in the pine trees.  Duncan was surprised by how OK the silence felt, how disinclined he was to press or insist.  It was almost enough, to just sit here with Methos beside him, emptiness all around them.

Unsurprisingly, when Methos finally answered, it was with a question.  "How does that strike you?  All that." He waved his hand toward the chasm and cliffs.

"It's ... "  Duncan stared hard at the scene before him, sorting through words— _beautiful; huge; empty; deep_ —examining each carefully, thinking hard.  It mattered very much to him to get this right.  "It's so ... old," he finally said.  "Isn't that it?"

Having gotten it out, he could turn to face Methos, already berating himself for coming up with such banality, braced for mockery or sarcasm.   He was unprepared for what he did see—a glow, almost as tangible as the warmth of sunset on the cliffs, a glow of delight in those changeable eyes. "MacLeod.  How often has someone told you, 'I love you for your mind?'"

Duncan was startled speechless for a moment.  " _That_ ... is one line I haven't heard."

"Oh good, I adore getting to be your first."  The smile had shifted, becoming the more familiar sardonic grin.  "Ego, I know, but I pride myself on being able to see past the surface.  As difficult as that is with someone whose surface looks like yours."

"Come off it."  Duncan wasn't sure if he was being teased.  "You're smarter than I am, don't be ridiculous."

"Smart."  Methos moved one shoulder dismissively, and tossed a pebble out over the brink into emptiness.  "'Smart as paint,' you remember that saying?"

"Methos—"

"What you are, is deep.  Thick, of course, at times," he added reassuringly.  "But deep.  I count on you for that, you know.  When the situation requires it."

"Well, I don't—"  He was flummoxed.  "You're not shallow, god knows."

Methos turned a hurt look on him.  "Damn.  And I really try, I make considerable effort to be."

"Only when you think the situation requires it."  He'd meant it saracastically, but it came out to his surprise sounding like nothing less than truth.

Methos didn't respond; he was looking out over the canyon again.

"Old.  Yes.  Exactly." His voice was very soft.  "You know, if you go down as far as the river  ...  you can put your hands right on rock that's two billion years old.  Two _billion_."  A jay swooped past, caught an updraft from the canyon, and skated back toward the junipers, squawking. 

"The cutting of the canyon itself—" and Methos slipped into his tour-guide voice momentarily, self-mocking— "commencing no longer than six million years ago, is a relatively recent event in geological history."  He put just a whisper of emphasis on "recent," and gave Duncan a deadpan look, like someone who'd just delivered the punchline to a particularly fine joke.

Duncan nodded, sensing there was more to come.

"The people who come here, the tourists ... "  Methos reached down and rubbed the pad of one finger over the rough rock.  When he lifted it, it was lightly dusted with sand.  "This is what they are."  He lifted the finger to his mouth, blew, and a few silicate particles glittered off into emptiness and disappeared.  "And me?"  He reached down again, this time scraping hard over the rock with a fingernail.  It left a faint mark on the surface, the skin of the rock scraped away, and when Methos again lifted his finger, there was a pinch of grit under the nail.   He flicked it out with his thumbnail and watched it scatter into space.  "That's all."

Duncan watched him, feeling strangely light himself.  "So coming to this place ... when you're here ... "  He was starting to see it, but he wanted to hear Methos say it.

"When I'm here—I'm young.  It's not just a matter of forgetting.  I _am_ young.  What the hell does five thousand years matter here?"  He paused, as a particularly raucous group of tourists chattered their way down the trail behind them.   "And—not just young like you're young.  I'm like them, here.  I'm their age.  We're no different, not really."

Duncan nodded, listening.

"We _are_ no different."  Methos' voice was low, as if he were talking to himself.  "I _am_ like them."  He glanced over at Duncan, and his tone lightened.  "It's awfully easy to misplace that fact, living in Paris.  I mean, after all, I'm older than Paris."  He paused, and Duncan was struck by how still he was sitting, the absence of the edgy restlessness he was used to in Methos.  "It's easy to misplace that fact when I'm with you, as well."

"I make you feel old?"  Years ago, in fact after the first few days of their acquaintance, Methos' age had somehow been set aside as a subject for banter and jokes rather than serious talk.  It had been too difficult to think about, in fact; much easier to just follow Methos' lead and ignore it. 

Methos made no response, and Duncan pushed on.  "Is that why you had to leave?"

And then he regretted the question, seeing Methos tighten up, pull back.  "Are you really under the impression that every single move I make has direct reference to you, MacLeod?"

Stung, he almost snapped back, but he caught the words in time and swallowed them down.  It was far too late for anger to do any good, and he was past the point where it would even make him feel better.  He stared out at the canyon, and tried to let the view calm him again, without much success.

When Methos spoke again, after a long minute, he could have sworn he heard an undertone of apology in the casual voice.  "Actually, the age thing—I don't mean to say that that's all bad.  In fact, do you know one of the things I like about this gig?"

He paused, until Duncan realized he was expected to respond.  Unwillingly, he pulled his gaze back from the far cliffs—flame-colored, now, in the late-angled sun—and looked over at Methos.  "No.  What?"

"Seeing their faces, when they first see all this.  Every morning, every new group, when they troop off the bus—some of them are excited, of course, but most are just looking bored.  Bitching about the motel, chatting with each other about TV shows, or mortgage rates.  Clearly thinking this is going to be just another tedious tour."

"And they haven't even met you yet," Duncan muttered.

Methos ignored it.  "And then, they walk up to the edge here—you can't really see it until you're right on top of it, you know—and they just stop dead.  And they look so amazed.  So ... awestricken."  He looked over at Duncan, as if to make sure he was listening, before going on.  "It's a good look on people."

"Yeah," Duncan said, thinking of Peggy.

"And it's something you so seldom get to see these days, everyone's gotten so blase lately."

"Getting nostalgic, are you?"

"Well, after all, I had several centuries to get used to seeing that look aimed my way.  Back when I was a god."  Methos spoke with utter off-handedness, as a man might say "Back when I was in college,"  and took another swallow from his canteen.  "And once you see that you never really lose your taste for it.  Idiotic, I know, pure silly ego, but in any event—I suppose I get a sort of vicarious kick, showing them this, getting to see that look on them."  His mouth twisted briefly in self-deprecation.  "Asinine, isn't it."

Duncan simply sat silent, staring at the ex-god in the tour-guide t-shirt next to him.  He couldn't begin to fathom why Methos had decided to show him this vulnerability.  Finally Methos looked over, and whatever he saw in Duncan's expression he apparently read as disapproval.  "Oh, come on, MacLeod, don't tell me you don't want it yourself, sometimes.  To just unbelt and _tell_ them, see how they'd look at you.  Just—astonish them.  Don't you?"

Duncan wondered briefly how this turned into being about him, again.  "I thought you liked being ordinary."

"Oh, I do.  Certainly.  But still—"  He bent over, fiddling with a bootlace.  Duncan watched him almost unwillingly, unable despite himself to ignore the long nervous fingers, the eloquent arch of spine, the dusty pale-gold skin at the nape of the neck and the memory of how perfectly his hand fitted over just that spot.

"Still?"

Finally Methos looked up.  "It's your fault, you know."

" _Me_?"

"Of course.  The way you used to look at me, when we first met—"  and Methos arranged his face into an expression of sheeplike slack-jawed awe, and then ruined the effect by crossing his eyes.  "Give a junkie a shot of morphine," he muttered, adding pointedly, "That was before you got to know me, of course.  And of course, I'm forgetting, you don't have to go waving your piddling four hundred years around to impress people, you're impressive without even trying."  He sighed loudly.  "It must be fun at times, to be impressive." 

Duncan was morally certain that the twinge of pathos in his voice was a put-on; nonetheless, foolhardy, he chose to take it at face value.  "You impress me." 

Even as he spoke, he knew that wasn't quite it, not quite the right word; but apparently it wasn't a fatal misstep, Methos was looking over at him with a real smile, one that answered the feeling behind the word.  Then the smile turned wicked. 

"I'll settle for surprising you," and all of a sudden he leaned over and Duncan felt wetness, a tongue sliding up his jaw, and then the spike of teeth set in his ear.  He leapt violently, feeling a raw jolt of arousal, and in the same instant a lurching terror of toppling into the abyss.  But Methos had him, held him, and had the cheek to laugh, ticklishly, into his ear. 

Then he pulled back just far enough to lock gazes; foxlike eyes, full of evil glee and dark promises.  "So where are you staying?" he asked, in a husky murmur that sent lust thrumming through Duncan.  "Tell me you reserved one of those luxury suites up at the Squire Inn, like the foresighted soul that you are.  With the jacuzzi, and the king-sized bed, and the champagne ... "  He dragged out the words, watching their effect on Duncan, who was hunched over, feeling crippled with desire.

"I wasn't sure I'd find you here," Duncan snarled, trying to right himself.  "I couldn't get a room anywhere, everything was booked."

"And you couldn't charm something out of the desk clerk?  Tsk. You must not have been trying."  Duncan glared silently at him, and Methos relented.  "Fortunately for both us of, I have a trailer I'm renting.  Down near Williams.  Small, and primitive, but it does have a bed."  He reached a hand over, innocently sliding his fingers up the inseam of Duncan's jeans.

Duncan pushed his hand away, glancing distractedly at the hikers staring up at them from the trail, and tried to gather his wits.  "Williams ... Damn it, Methos, that's fifty miles from here!"

"Fifty-five," Methos corrected him, giving his leg a final stroke, then pulling away and getting to his feet.  "And," he added practically, "I'll want to stop and pick up something to eat on the way.  So we'd better get going, hadn't we?" 

* * *

The trailer was tiny.  Even with its sparse furnishings—one table, one chair, one lamp, a stack of books, the bed—it felt cluttered.  Standing in the middle of it, Duncan felt crowded, stiff with unease, his anger rebuilding.  It was too hot.  The air was stale.  The ceiling was low.  He didn't belong here.  He was sweating.  His legs ached from the day's hike.  This wasn't going to work.  He could hardly breathe.  Coming here had been a mistake.  He should have stayed in Paris.  Should have let the whole thing go.  And what the hell was taking Methos so long in the bathroom?

He was ready to grab up the car keys and slam out when the bathroom door opened.  Methos drifted out, ghostly in the dimness, naked.  Two steps brought him face to face with Duncan. 

He was silent, and his face was without expression.  But in his eyes Duncan saw something huge, something as ancient as the canyon, and as deep. 

To fall into that depth was to fall forever, to lose himself and never come back.  But this time, instead of keeping him safe on the ground, Methos' hands edged him closer to the brink—pulling off his shirt, unbuttoning his jeans, moving him toward the bed—and then they pushed, and he felt himself toppling, taken by some force stronger than gravity, and he fell, fell to the bed, and kept falling ... 

... and came back to find himself kneeling on the thin mattress, Methos moving beneath him, under his hands, his skin silver like water in the dim light, arching and shuddering up into his touch, until at last Methos reached up and took hold of him, and sensation drove his eyes shut, and, sightless, he only felt, tasted, smelled;  felt the strong grip of Methos' hands holding him, shifting him, smelled the rich pungent musk of Methos' groin, tasted salty skin as he reached out blindly with his mouth, and then felt the sticky blunt tip of Methos' cock pushing urgently against his cheek, and blindly he turned to take it in, felt it filling his mouth, thick and solid, at the same instant that he felt himself engulfed, consumed; and then he was blinded anew, as Methos' thighs gripped around his head, just as his were gripped around Methos', and what started as heated play between them, as lead and follow, call and response, each caress echoed, mirrored by the other, a wordless asking and receiving, giving and reciprocating, became faster, tighter, closer, so that they moved and breathed and sucked and thrust as one, fused, a circle unbroken, and he could no longer tell if it was Methos' cock in his mouth or his own, every lick and bite he gave he felt on his own flesh in the same instant, they were a single being, one mind, one heart driving blood through one flesh, one creature, self-nourishing, self-devouring.  Ouroboros, he thought, as he finally stopped falling, hit bottom, exploded. _Eternity.  Eternity_.

* * *

The bed was a wreck, sheets unmoored from the mattress and pushed askew in rumpled sweat-swampy drifts.  One corner of the mattress had gotten soaked with spilled beer, and the lone pillow had fallen to the floor, to mingle with taco wrappers and empty bottles. 

Duncan lay boneless in the wreckage, drifting in and out of a drowse, gently stewing in the heat.  Methos had insisted on opening windows instead of turning on the air conditioner, and a whisper of desert air, night air, drifted in through the screens, cool on his skin, turning the dank sheets clammy, bringing a smell of pine and earth into the dim stuffy room.

He shifted, trying to run his hand down the long slope of Methos' back.  But the skin beneath his fingers was sticky with sweat, too damp to be strokeable, not wet enough to be slick, and any attempt at a caress came out rough, his fingers stuttering over skin like a stone skipping over water, as though Methos' skin was turning away his touch.  So he let his hand rest, sighing, feeling the night breeze cooling the empty space between their bodies. 

The radio was playing softly, some jazz station from a distant city, dusty with static.  Night music, gentle as the night air.  The faint buzzing accompaniment, barely more tuneful than the static, was Methos humming along, deep in his chest.  The tune was an odd wander of tinkling notes that meandered along, got distracted, toyed with other keys, and suddenly slid back to the beginning, to start all over again.  It made an unexpected melody, sweet and strange and rueful.  Methos' humming followed it, rising and falling with the steady rhythm of his breathing.

"What is that?"

"Hm?"

"The tune."

"You don't know this?"  Soft breath of a chuckle.  "That's right, it's not Puccini, you wouldn't." 

"Oh spare me the—"

"'Ruby, My Dear.'"

"What?"

"The song.  Since you were asking."  His voice took on disk-jockey cadences.  "By the late, great, Thelonious Monk.  Pianist, composer, ascended master of jazz."

"Ah."  It always gave Duncan an unexpected glow when Methos actually answered a question of his. 

"Ruu-by ... my dear," Methos almost-sang, not quite on pitch, the words almost fitting the gentle spill of notes.  Then he paused, for a few breaths, and spoke again in his normal voice.  "Thelonious Sphere Monk.  What a glorious name."  He poked Duncan in the ribs.  "Don't you think?"

"Mmph."  Apparently Methos wanted to have a conversation.  He wasn't averse to the idea, but he wasn't sure how well he could hold up his end.  His brain felt as limp as his body.

"Next time I change my name, I think I should take on at least some portion of that moniker, as an homage."

"Thelonious," Duncan said drowsily.  "Last and most decadent of the Roman emperors."

"Not that bit, idiot."  Another poke.  "Monk, perhaps." 

Duncan opened his eyes and raised his head.  He knew how clerical Methos could look, pale and chilly in his long black coat.  But right now, naked, sated, sticky with semen and hot sauce, he looked as wholly un-monklike as anything he'd ever seen.

"Or—Sphere," Methos went on.  "You know, maybe I could be one of those rock stars with just one name.  Like Bono, or Sting.  'Sphere.'  I like it."

"There's nothing whatsoever spherical about you."  Duncan dropped his head back down on the mattress, and yawned.

"Really?"  Methos' voice went velvety.  "What about this?"  He picked up Duncan's hand and brought it around to his ass, giving it a little encouraging push. 

Duncan let his palm move over the solid curve, feeling grit sticking to the skin.  "Well, this is certainly—spherical enough.  As far as it goes," and his hand found the place where the perfect arc ended, flattening out into the plane of thigh.  "You've really put on some muscle," he added..

"Going up and down those bloody trails every day'll do it."  Methos shifted, rubbing himself against Duncan's palm.  "I'm in better shape than I've been in years."

"Yeah, I noticed."  He dug his fingertips hard into the tight bow of hamstrings, hearing Methos sigh with pleasure.  "After this job you could hire yourself out for one of those Everest expeditions.  Sherpa Sphere, that'll be you."

"A sphere's the perfect shape, you know that?" Methos murmured, after a moment.  "The strongest shape.  No weak spots anywhere.  Totally invulnerable."

It was no more than what he already knew and should have expected, Duncan told himself,  but still he felt sudden desolation.  He lifted his hand off Methos' leg, and turned away, reaching over to click off the radio, which had started playing edgy jittering bebop.  "Then that's a good name for you," he said into the sudden stillness.  "That's what you're like, after all." 

Silence, for a long moment, and then, "No.  No, I'm not.  Not really. Not at all."  Methos reached over, took Duncan's hand back, brought it to his mouth.  The caresses he gave each finger were nothing as formal as kisses, just a stroking with lips, tongue.  "If I were, I wouldn't have needed to go away."

Duncan shivered under the gentleness of Methos' lips, and then shivered harder at the feel of teeth behind them.  "I still don't understand that," he said, wishing he didn't feel the need to push it but unable to resist.  "You told me why you came here.  But I still don't know why you needed to leave in the first place."

Methos' tongue, which had been tracing down the heart line on his hand, stopped, and after a moment he could feel a sigh against his palm.  "Do you really need to understand?"

"Yeah," he said through a tightness in his throat.  "I need to try."

Methos considered for a moment, holding Duncan's hand in both of his, examining it with care.  His forehead looked troubled, but when he spoke his voice was very calm.  "Of course you do.  As I said, you're deep.  You go deep.  That's who you are, that's what you do.  And you take everyone around you along for the trip."  He looked over sharply, even before hearing Duncan's little indrawn breath.  "And I do not bring this up as some occasion for guilt.  When I do stick around, go along for the ride, it's my choice.  It's not as if I don't know what I'm in for."

"But it—" and then he stopped.  Hurts you, he thought, troubles you, bores you to tears, gives you pain, pisses you off, drives you away ... 

He felt his hand being squeezed, and looked up to find Methos watching him with a look of patient affection.  "I'm not always up to it, is all," he said.  "Going deep, for me—it's not exactly a quick day hike down the well-marked trails, with guard railings and water fountains provided for travellers' safety and comfort.  Quite the contrary.  So it's much easier to just stay up on the surface.  But being around you—I don't get to stay there for very long."  He paused, watching Duncan's face.

"I don't try to do it," Duncan said helplessly.  "It's not like I'm trying to make things difficult."

"I know."  Methos was still watching him.  "It's just who you are.  Just, being who you are—you don't let me be anyone but myself."  He paused.  "You never have.  Since the first day we met."

Duncan considered that for a long time before saying, "That's not something I can apologize for."

Methos nodded.  "None expected.  And," he added, "none offered, either."  He put a quick kiss on the middle of Duncan's palm, then set the hand down on the mattress between them.  "That's all the explanation I have at the moment.  Boring topic in any event, far more interesting to ask why you felt compelled to come after me.  What you had in mind, exactly."

Duncan felt he'd had a door shut in his face.  "If I have to explain _that_ to you—"

"You don't _have_ to do anything, MacLeod.  I just thought it likely that you had some residual wrath buffeting around in there that hadn't yet found egress."  Methos flopped onto his back, arms spread, exposing belly and throat in a parody of surrender.  "If so, now's the chance to let it rip.  Lay on, and get it over with."

"You really think that?  That I only came after you in order to punish you?"  Duncan propped himself up on an elbow and contemplated the body spread out beneath him.  He lowered his head, taking a few salty tastes of armpit, throat, nipple, feeling shivers run over the skin under his mouth.  Then he raised himself up again.  Methos' eyes glinted at him from the shadows.  "I told you before that I'm not angry with you for going.  Not any more.  I mean that.  But it hurt, when you left."

"I know."  Methos moved closer, sliding beneath him. 

"It hurts every time.  It's like being cut open."

Methos reached one arm up and began running his fingernails gently up and down Duncan's spine.  An exquisite, maddening sensation, awakening itches and then soothing them at the same moment.

"And I'm not sure it always heals."  Duncan paused.  "That it ever heals, really."

After a long moment, Methos said, "Healing might be overrated, you know."  His voice was muffled against Duncan's chest.

Duncan wasn't sure if the astringency of the remark was deliberate, but it stung nevertheless.  "Now that sounds like it's meant to be deep.  Poaching my job, are you?" 

"God forbid."  Methos shifted away from him a little, making room for words.  "No, it's simply that—OK.  A few weeks ago, there was a fellow on one of my hikes, guy who fancied himself a poet.  Very full of himself, he was, and he decided that I was some sort of kindred spirit.  He latched onto me like a tick, and insisted on taking me out for drinks, the night he was here, and reading me his stuff."

The conjunction of Methos with an egomaniacal poet perturbed Duncan on some subterranean level.  "And was his stuff any good?"

"Oh, terrible crap, it was like—" Methos hunted for the right analogy— "It was like the bastard offspring of Robinson Jeffers and Rod McKuen, with Robert Bly's idiot twin officiating at the baptism."

Duncan snickered shamelessly.  "So I suppose I don't need to worry about you loving _him_ for his mind."  He stretched himself out on the bed, enjoying the sense of a small itch of jealousy being scratched.

Methos bit him on a nearby patch of chest, not hard.  "He also had little piggy eyes and tended to froth at the corners of his mouth when he got excited.  Don't be silly, MacLeod."

"You got him excited, huh?"  Duncan said.  "Frothing at the mouth, eh?  Nudge, nudge."

"Very funny."  Methos bit him again, harder, and there ensued a brief tussle before Duncan got him pinned, with a leg flung over his thighs. 

"So, you went out for drinks.  And?"  Duncan knew the story's point would emerge eventually, without his prompting, but he wanted to get it over with.

"He was in a swivet about some silly harmless pamphlet the Park Service hands out, in which the canyon is rather sententiously described as a vast scar in the landscape, or some such thing.  Right there, in the middle of the lounge at the Bright Angel Lodge, the guy starts pounding on the bar and yelling about how it's not a scar, it's not a scar—"  Duncan heard his voice shift, and could only imagine he was hearing the timbre of that unknown angry poet— "It's an open wound!"  Methos pounded, demonstratively, on Duncan's hip, and declaimed,  "Not a scar, but a gash, in the tender belly of the earth!  A wound, that cannot heal!  It shall never scab over with the crust of mountains!  It bleeds red, with every sunset!  The cliffs, like living flesh, raw meat sliced by the silver blade of river water—"

"Frothing at the mouth the whole time," Duncan spluttered, hiccuping with laughter.

"Frothing, yes."  Methos snorted.  "There was more that I've forgotten, something about the tourists being like gawkers at a cosmic accident, thrill-seekers ravening after gore."

"So what happened, did you both get thrown out?"

"I've no idea what happened to him, I went to the men's room and snuck out the back way."

"Good plan."  Duncan flapped the sheets, trying to fan himself.  The night breeze had died down.

"But there was one thing he said ..." Methos began, and then fell silent.

"What, it gets worse?"  Duncan looked over at him with a grin and then saw Methos was no longer joking.  "Oh, come on."

"Hey, even a blind pig can find a truffle now and then, you know."

"Blind pig, right."  And then, "OK, OK, OK.  You want to quote bad poetry at me, do it.  I've lived through worse." 

Methos gave him a look, and then turned his gaze off into some dark corner of the trailer.  "I can't remember quite how he put it—thankfully—but it was about how the earth ..."  He stopped, and then went on. "How the earth should be grateful to the river.  Grateful, for that wound.  For being cut open like that.  And  ... grateful that it can never heal."

Duncan stared at him.  "Grateful."

"That if it weren't for that ... we'd never know—how deep it all goes. We'd never see it.  Never know how many layers there are.  How long it took to build them up, one after another.  And how beautiful they are."  He turned, finally to look at Duncan.  "It'd just be the ground, you see, good old plain ground that you walk around on every day and never think twice about." 

Duncan reached out and grabbed him, hauling Methos roughly against his chest, gripping him hard.  "Grateful," he whispered harshly.  "I'm supposed to be _grateful_?"  And then, suddenly, he found himself laughing—at least that's what it seemed to be, his eyes were wet but it didn't hurt enough for tears.  "Gratitude," he said, and then he kissed Methos, hard at first, almost brutally, and then gentling himself, easing his grip, and finally letting go.  "OK, then," he said, breathing hard.  "OK. OK."

Methos whispered, "You're not the only one who gets hurt, MacLeod.  And really—wouldn't you rather know?"

"OK."  He couldn't seem to come up with anything else to say.

He could feel Methos nodding, and they lay together in silence for a long time.  Duncan wanted to go to sleep—he was terribly tired, wrung out, body and spirit—but there was something more he needed to say, even if it fractured this strange moment of connection, and finally he just spoke without preamble, into the drowsy air.  "I have to leave soon.  I have to be in Brussels on Thursday."

"Mm-hmm."

"It's not that I want to go.  It's business, an old friend's selling off an estate, she really needs me to help out with—"

"Of course."  Methos sounded half-asleep and wholly calm. 

"You're not surprised."

"You're forgetting, MacLeod—" a yawn— "I'm the one who does surprising, you're the one who does impressive.  Don't get us mixed up."

"Well, hell."  He turned, flopping on his back.  "Fine. If you want me to go, I can leave right now, you know."  There was no heat in his words, and he made no movement to sit up.

"Oh, for god's sake."  Methos shook himself awake, reached out, grabbed a random handful of hair, and used it to yank Duncan's head around so they were face-to-face, almost nose-to-nose.  "Look.  You have to leave.  Of course you have to leave.  D'you think I expected you'd hang around in this trailer the rest of the summer?  Watching Oprah and doing the ironing, perhaps?"  His grip eased, and he started working his fingers through Duncan's hair, unsnarling tangles.  "You have things to do.  Friends, business, all that.  And me, I have a tour to lead tomorrow morning.  You have a life.  As do I."  His fingers had worked their way down Duncan's head, to the base of the skull, and moved there slowly, easing away knots of muscle.  "Those lives will continue to intersect.  Always.  You know that.  So do I."

There was something in Duncan that wanted to deny the soothing touch, the words, but it would have taken more strength than he had in him, and it would have been untrue.  All he said, at last, was, "So when can I expect the next—intersection?  How long's this job going to last, anyway, before you drop it?"

"What, you don't think I've found my true vocation here? All right, all right ... it's, what, mid-August now.  This'll shut down in October.  Winter comes early up here.  Early and hard."

"And after that?"  He turned back onto his side, facing Methos.

"After that . .  . well, after that comes _winter_ , MacLeod."  Methos' voice was getting drowsy again, and his fingers had stilled on Duncan's neck.  "I'll be looking for someplace warm, of course."

"Of course."  The night breeze had picked up again, and the wind that brushed in through the screens was distinctly brisk.  Early and hard, indeed, Duncan thought bitterly.  "Warm.  Sure.  Tahiti, maybe.  Mallorca.  The Canary Islands.  Be sure and drop me a postcard, won't you, and—"  He stopped; Methos was yawning, hugely, and clearly not listening.

"I said—"  Methos' voice was slurred, and he slid forward, burrowing himself deeply into the heated curve of Duncan's body— "someplace _warm_ ," pulling Duncan's arm around himself like a comforter, pushing his face into Duncan's neck, sighing deeply and with utter contentment.  "Idiot," he added, and, to all appearances, fell immediately asleep.

Duncan held him.  He could feel little random twitches run through Methos' body here and there, as one muscle after another relaxed, a rhythm counterpointed by the occasional pop and ping of the trailer's metal skin cooling down.  He could feel Methos' breath warm against his throat, and at the same time the chill brush of night air on his back.  He wished that he'd gotten up earlier and shut the window, but still the contrasting sensations were not unpleasant.  It was like the familiar face-burning back-freezing feeling of sitting in front of a fire on a cold night, and he had, pragmatically, accepted a very long time ago that if you only have one fire, one side of you will always be cold.  He shifted, covering a bit more of Methos' back with his arm.

The night seemed wholly quiet at first, but as he lay letting the last echoes of their words fade out in his mind, he could begin to hear a faint constant murmur of sound, almost below the threshold of hearing.  A sound of something endlessly and steadily moving, the way time itself might sound as it passed.  He knew that it was likely just traffic on the highway, or distant airplanes—people coming, people going, arriving, departing, travellers passing through—but he found himself imagining it was the river itself he heard, the endless flow of water, always moving and yet always in the same place, and always cutting deeper and deeper. 

Two billion years deep, now, and still going.  He pulled Methos closer to him, sighing, and let the water-sound carry him into sleep.


End file.
